Staying Employed: Trends in Medicaid, Child Care, and Head Start in Ohio

November 15, 2004

Policy Matters Ohio and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research have jointly released a new issue brief which documents trends in Ohio child and health care funding, and reviews research showing that subsidized child and health care can help low-wage parents stay employed. Staying Employed: Trends in Medicaid, Child Care, and Head Start in Ohio finds that Ohio expanded eligibility and expenditures for Medicaid, child care and state-funded Head Start in the late 1990s, but that more recently cuts have been implemented and threatened. Given national research demonstrating that such programs help low-wage parents remain in the workforce, Policy Matters and IWPR recommend maintaining current levels of Medicaid services and eligibility, restoring child care assistance to previous eligibility and co-payment levels, and restoring state-funded Head Start to previous participation levels.